


Way Up High in an Apple Tree

by draculard



Category: The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Genre: Death, Decay, F/F, Ghosts, Maggots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: After the crash, Nell dreams that she and Theo are picking fruit.





	Way Up High in an Apple Tree

Her car strikes the trunk of an old, leaf-less tree, and when Nell’s head hits the steering wheel, she dreams of apples.

She’s young; her palms are calloused, hands layered with dirt, feet bare. She scrambles up the tree easy as breathing, planting her feet on a lower branch while she reaches for the red, ripe fruit above her. On the ground, Theo tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and kneels on the soft earth and old, brown leaves; she holds her skirt out and fills it with windfalls, and when Nell tosses an apple down to her, it lands atop the others.

She throws another apple down and watches it leave a red streak of color in the air, like blood running from a wound.

~~from a cut on someone's temple~~

Nell doesn’t climb back down; she leaps from the branches, lands hard on the dirt next to Theo. It sends shockwaves up her ankles — and she tries not to frown when she notices that they aren’t fading, that in fact, those strange, sharp pains in her legs have been there for as long as she can remember. Theo smiles at her, and Nell has no choice but to smile back.

Theo leans over toward her, her hair loose, the apples jostling in her skirt between them. She kisses Nell, lips gentle and soft, and even though Nell’s eyes are closed, she can see the house looming off to the side and thrumming as it waits.

 _I don’t want to leave,_ Nell says. She tastes cinnamon on Theo’s lips. She goes back for more, again and again, chasing that flavor from Theo’s mouth down to her pale, slender neck — down to her collar bones — but with every kiss the taste becomes more faint, until it’s barely there at all.

 _You don’t have to, silly thing,_ Theo says. She reaches between them, into her skirt, knuckles brushing against Nell’s thigh as she searches for an apple. One of the fresh, juicy ones that Nell pulled down from the tree. But when she holds one up, it’s a windfall, pitted with holes, sections of the skin so wrinkly and brown ~~they may as well be~~

 _Get me a fresh one,_ Nell says. Her mouth is dry. Theo’s brow knots; she steps away, so Nell can see the apples as she searches them again. Each one is small and shriveled, riddled with worms.

 _There aren’t any,_ Theo says, and Nell turns to go. She feels Theo’s fingers catch her, wrapped around her wrist. _But you don’t have to go,_ Theo says, begging, pleading, desperate. _You can stay. Please._

She looks back — not at Theo. At the house, at the apples.

 _Are they worms,_ she wonders, _rooting around beneath the apple skin? Or are they maggots?_

 _You can stay,_ Theo says again, and she bites into one of the windfalls, like it’s nothing, like it tastes just as sweet as it should. Nell watches Theo’s teeth bisect a worm, looks up and sees a maggot lying whole on Theo’s pink tongue.

And she knows she’s going to kiss Theo again anyway, and she knows she’ll taste decay on Theo’s lips. She feels a pain in her temple, a sharp snap in her legs, a suffocating, invisible vise on her throat.

~~may as well be a rotting corpse~~

_I’ll stay,_ Nell says, and feels something she can’t see drive a hole right through her abdomen, but when she looks down, there’s nothing there, not even blood. _If you want me to._

 _I do,_ says Theo.


End file.
